First, mostly out of guilt for taking a month to respond, I will attempt a succinct response to Titus' last.
You are overlooking, or simply forgot, a critical aspect of my New Deal argument. I contended - and this exact phrasing was always the crux of our pre-concession argument - that New Deal was "an overall failure." THAT phrase started the multi-decade argument. I'd go farther and claim it to be an unequivocal failure, but I thought (from the beginning) that "overall" was the best adjective I could win from you. And here's why I'm reminding you of that - Jambo once made the TVA etc argument, in relation to Oppenhiemer and the boys, and what I told him, you, and anybody that would listen is that New Deal was instituted, adopted, passed, renewed, (whether it was thrown out by the court eventually or not), all as a repair to the Great Depression. NOT as a wartime necessary evil. The entire premise of New Deal was to "relieve economic suffering" and "fix" the economy. It was not a wartime apparatus instituted to win a war. By the way, I'm not susceptible to arguments claiming "success" in "relief." I contend short term relief was traded for prolonged suffering which isn't really relief at all. Back to the matter at hand - the fact that certain left over aspects of New Deal impacted positively our later war effort is completely and utterly irrelevant to the Titus and F. Ryan discussion. We were explicitly judging its success/failure rate based on how it affected the numerous economic ailments collectively referred to as the Great Depression Era. Wars between nation states is by definition a collective effort. Collective societal arrangements can not be justified during peace (or as a response to economic calamity) due to their effectiveness during a state of declared, active, war. Waging "economic wars" do not work on a collective level, see the war on poverty, or any war on X,Y and Z societal issue and you'll have ample proof. It's an absurd assertion. You don't think so? Then let me go at it from the opposite end. Given there were no incidents of mass Pacific Coast sabotage during the war we must then conclude that the internment of Japanese Americans - US CITIZENS - would work during peacetime in order to maintain our hard won security, right? We want the same low level of sabotage during peacetime that we do during war, do we not? Then clearly, given our only Pacific based attack in the history of our nation came from Japan, we must continue to intern the Japanese in perpetuity to achieve the same level of security success.... right? In addition, to ensure our future prosperity...err... I mean "security" we should continue to inspect every single piece of mail sent in and out of the U.S. Why not? It "worked" during wartime did it not?
Look, if you want me to admit that the TVA supplied power to the Manhattan project, that I cannot deny. But its a dangerous game for you to play given that, oh I don't know... INVENTING NUCLEAR BOMBS WAS NOT THE GOAL OF NEW DEAL. In other words New Deal failed in its' mandate, in its' promise, in its' intent - namely to mend the 20th century's greatest economic meltdown. In fact I think it's arguable New Deal made it worse. To take one or two surviving programs, note the historical coincidence (and that's all it is, one of those quirks of fate America is ripe with) and say "but these two programs helped end the war in Japan 12 years later" is more than grasping at straws. It's grasping at the empty hand which formerly held them. If that's the level you're descending to in order to defend New Deal, then allow me the same... had we not, as a nation, been subjected to the utter ruin and overspending that New Deal caused, we would have recovered as such an economic powerhouse that Japan would have been too frightened of our potential wartime output to even attack! What's more, since we're cherry picking history to justify our argument, the economic recovery we could have had MINUS New Deal (such as our recovery from the previous depression which brought on the Roaring 20's by cutting government spending in half), may have brought about such an economic boom that investors or philanthropists may have brought about a Manhattan project by 1940. I'll go further. Without New Deal there may have been an economic boom. That boom could have caused a wealthy contributor to donate money to his Alma Mater. That school may have given a scientist a grant. That grant could have brought about nuclear innovation in 1939. AGAIN, Japan would have never attacked had we lit off a few demonstrations right after the oil embargo. Do you see how insane of a game cherry-picking later developments in order to justify past initiatives is? Unintended future events hardly justify the existence of programs which fail at their primary, mandated task. In other words, we should always respond to economic crises with collectvist state run economic planning just incase one of those programs helps us win one front in a war a decade from now .... enter a great big, sweaty W-T-F?
Please, the horse is beyond dead. Yet you've managed to bring its' zombie corpse to my front door, forcing yet another double tap from the end of my shiny Sheriff Grimes-esque revolver. Any example of a successful wartime collectivist policy (the only time we are essentially acting as a collective) can not justify its' peacetime use, nor its implementation as a response to economic hardship, which was always the standard by which you and I judged New Deal. In every historical example when such policies were applied in peacetime, they failed. And New Deal is no exception. Nor can you say "but we might, maybe couldn't of developed or won this, that or another, a decade later without part II, paragraph C, sub-paragraph J of Program X" and claim that as a justification for rating Program X as a "success." It's an insane standard. You can not prove, nor even reasonably demonstrate, that we don't win WWII (or develop nuclear technology) without the TVA, or especially New Deal as a whole. I could do the same "what if" game and we can "what if" ourselves into full on dementia, but it won't get us anywhere. New Deal was FDR's prescription to the Great Depression. The patient did not mend. Nor is there any foreign example in history where this prescription to that disease worked. New Deal failed... get over it brother.
Now... to my college woes.
I'm taking three classes (which is considered full time at the trimester based private university I'm attending). Let me start here...
There was a time in America, a time I remember even, when if you woke up and said to yourself, "I wonder where Tom Petty was born", there was no way to find out, and you just didn't know. Sure, you'd ask a friend or two, but they wouldn't know. And you'd spend the rest of your life not knowing. Then, one day, while you were in line at McDonald's you'd look over and see a pretty girl eating a hamburger and wearing a Heartbreakers tee shirt. And you'd rush over and plead, please, please tell me, where was Tom Petty born? And she'd answer, "Florida." And that's how you met your wife. I'm going somewhere with this, just hang on.
So it's a few minutes after class yesterday and with a few other hangers-around still present I approach the 50-something professor (technically he has a masters and is working on his dissertation, but I've noticed he doesn't correct the address), and I ask him why, out of all of my "100's" listed on my online homework page does the most recent one read "50?" He tells me that my response was only two sentences (I'm quoting now), and "it must be at least three." I should pause to tell you that this class is entitled, "A Survey of the Old Testament." My two-sentence response was about one of Isaiah's warnings to Israel. I quickly told him that I listed copious facts and thoughts on the subject within those very long two sentences, and he informed me quote, "Run on sentences don't count as more than one." To which I respond "But I listed alot of information what are you crazy I fully answered?" KIDDING (that was a run on sentence). The "professor" continued, "That's how I remain objective about otherwise subjective material." While I was still contorting my face to that remark the Air Force officer whom sits next to me piped up. "So we can just write any three sentences, about anything, and get a 100?" There was a four second pause. Count em' out, 1 Mississippi, Two... you get the picture, at the end of which Stephen Hawking replies, "Yes, I guess so."
Look, this guy, the teacher, he's not a bad guy. He's affable, polite, and he actually teaches Old Testament history rather than preach Old Testament values, which I like. By the way, a quick aside, if the Old Testament were made into a movie, an authentic representation, it would be rated NC-17, AT BEST. But I digress... But that''s the problem. Here's a good guy, a descent teacher with a background in scholarly history, has no leftist agenda, loves his country and goes to church, and yet he is so deep into the "academic factory" as I call it, it took only a four second pause for him to arrive, out loud, at the conclusion that he was demanding quantity over quality, and in the most demoralizing way. I instantly realized that the other mouth breathers in the room, sucking up my good oxygen (by the way I can disprove Darwin any Tuesday night at your local college class), all, each of them, received 100's on that assignment while I was relegated to a 50/F because of my crafty invention of the never before seen SEMI-F*CKING-COLON!
Holy crap, is that disheartening. But it doesn't end there. My classes are not online classes, yet all homework and papers are submitted online. That's not all that bad, I guess. However, all quizzes are taken online. Oh and yes, all exams are taken online too, save one. I remind you, these are not online classes. The school counters any ethical issue by putting a 90 minute time limit on your test once you activate the tab. They also require you to install "Lockdown" software that disallows any other tabs being open, to Google answers presumably, during the test. Let me ask you something. Do you trust the integrity of a test, or academic program, where they account for the possibility of open tabs but not an open book? Perhaps I should alert them to the fact that this cat named Steve Jobs came up with this nifty device that allows me to access online data. A device not encoded with "Lockdown." Oy. Without studying if you can't look up, google, or guess your way into a passing grade on a 100 question A,B,C,D option test in 90 minutes then turn in your human card and report to the zoo in a monkey suit, because I can't communicate with you CoCo.
Ugggh. And I'm paying for this! Tom Petty? I'm getting to that. On the university website you have your own accounts page with your classes, assignments, grades, submission drop box, etc. In bold type, 18 font, on the first page, it gives a warning. It reminds the student that all papers submitted (research, essays etc) will be run through a program named "Turntin." It searches for plagiarism and if any paper exceeds the 40% plagiarism threshold, as judged by Turntin, you will receive a zero. I did my paper explaining the motivations behind the institution of the Apostle's Creed in about 2 hours, and I guarantee 45 minutes of that was trying to figure out how to activate the stupid in text citation program of Word. I received a 99/A, no plagiarism flags. However, it occurred to me that any anti-plagiarism system is only as good as its' database. And what do you want to bet that within the 100,089 entries Google returned to me within 0.49 seconds of Googling "Apostle's Creed", that Turntin didn't jump to page 89, entry 5,667? Not to mention, you're telling me I can directly plagiarize over a THIRD of my paper and still pass? See, in the "old days" the only information source available to the student was the university library. And all the professors had either read OR WRITTEN the only sources you might use. You actually had to read, think, and write down those thoughts in a coherent manner. I did not cut and paste a word of my paper, but undoubtedly every May thousands of adults are walking across a stage and receiving an officially labeled sheet of papyrus stating when they graduated and with what honor without that graduate being able to define "papyrus."
I'm not mad. I'm just disheartened is all. College is not about survival of the fittest. Everyone gets a participation trophy. But try getting employed in a field you're interested in without that trophy. No chance. Academia has engineered a compulsory service requirement that makes selected service registration look like a joy-filled excursion to purchase stamps. But hey, that Tom Petty story paid off... even if my student loans never are.
So... how are things with you?
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